


(Enough Misadventures) To Last A Lifetime

by theawkwardterrier (fluffernutter8)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 19:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6717607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/theawkwardterrier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"An hour ago you drank half a bottle of my Memory Mixture and then shouted to me that we need better orange juice."</i> James is an idiot who drinks things without remembering that he's married to a potion maker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Enough Misadventures) To Last A Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverWriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverWriting/gifts).



> Written for the prompt _waking up with amnesia au_

It’s not like he forgets his name. Okay, he does for a few minutes, just when he wakes up, but when they tell him his name is James, it fits. Or he doesn’t question it. Whatever. Most of his memories seem to have slid into place. Why be picky? Especially when there’s bigger business to deal with.

“We’re married?” It’s the third time he’s said it. Once to Sirius, before he’d left (Merlin, was Sirius _old_ and _responsible_ now?) and once, dazedly, to Lily. It actually seems to get more incredulous the more he says it. “You married me? James Potter and Lily Evans?”

“Lily Potter now.” She hums to herself, somehow counting stirs to her cauldron as well. “I spent ages wondering if I should hyphenate, though. Do you think I should have?”

“Whatever you want,” James says quickly, looking at her with wide eyes. The last thing he remembers, he and Lily Evans didn’t have as much of a relationship as they did an agreement that he wouldn’t talk to her and she would let him keep all his body parts. Because he’s an idiot, he reminds her of this.

“Oh yes, sixth year. Good times,” Lily says. She turns over a little hourglass; sand starts rapidly straining downward.

“But what happened? How did we get here?” James knows he sounds eager, but they’re sitting in a bright, blue kitchen where Lily’s cauldron rests on a clean wooden table, a breeze that smells like summer grass stroking at the checked curtains, and James is absolutely certain that any minute he’s going to be woken up by Sirius having one off in the next bed, so he has to ask so he’ll know. Beautiful dream Lily is going to guide him to this future. “You hated me.”

“Well,” Lily says calmly, wiping her hands against an apron with thick, colorful stitching made by either a child or a clumsy adult, “You kept giving me reasons to. When you stopped doing that, I stopped hating you.”

“That was it? That was the answer the whole time?” James feels almost tearful. “But Lily, I don’t know if I can stop doing stupid shit.”

“I know you can’t, my love. An hour ago you drank half a bottle of my Memory Mixture and then shouted to me that we need better orange juice, so I think it’s safe to say the stupid shit will continue. It will just be new and different shit.” She pats his hair. He leans into it. Remus will give him a massage when one or both of them has had too much to drink, but this is much better. James decides he won’t talk about that in case it’s insulting to Remus.

He sits up suddenly. “Nothing’s happened to the boys has it? I’ll swear off Quidditch forever if I’m sitting here with the perfect life and something’s happened to them.”

Lily pets him once more and then stands over by the cauldron again because the timer has finished. James scoots a little closer and angles his head hoping maybe she’ll absently start the petting again.

But she just adds a few more ingredients and says, “The boys are fine. Although I’m a little put out that Sirius didn’t throw his body between you and the potion bottle. And retrospectively alarmed that we ever left Harry with them.”

“Who’s Harry?”

Lily shakes her head. She takes out her wand from her apron pocket and the fire beneath the cauldron disappears. There are footsteps on the stairs and James blinks because he has appeared in the kitchen. Blinks again and realizes that it’s a slightly different him with Lily’s eyes, which means he has a kid and also proof that he’s had sex with Lily Evans.

Harry (so normal; James’s dad would have _loved_ that) looks around, pulling on a gray t-shirt. “What’s happening?” he says eyeing the cauldron, his mother, and James eyeing him.

“Your dad had a little incident,” Lily says. She hands Harry a muffin, shrugging when he looks from it to her. “Pre-incident baking.”

“Alright,” Harry says easily. He takes a bite. “‘M going to Ron’s for Quidditch.” He sticks the rest of the muffin in his mouth and leaves the room as Lily pours some of the cooled teal potion into a glass and sets it in front of James, who doesn’t move for a moment. The sound of the Floo shakes him out of it.

“We have a kid? And we haven’t even told him to wait ten minutes between eating and Flooing or his stomach would fall out?” James covers his face with his hands. “I’m not ready to have a kid!”

“You said that the first time too.” Lily begins petting his hair again. Maybe he will have regular breakdowns from now on. “Now drink your Amnesia Antidote. I haven’t had a chance to eat a muffin yet and you made the apple ones for me.”

James picks up the glass and then sets it back down again. “But what if this messes everything up? We have pretty curtains, Lily. What if I drink it and we don’t have pretty curtains anymore?”

“James,” says Lily, her voice dry and overly patient, “you once told me that my Ecstasy Elixir could make McGonagall do a striptease. I’ve brewed this right. I think the curtains will be fine.”

That does sound like him. James picks up the glass. He sets it down again. He takes Lily’s hand. “Whatever happens, you know I love you, right?”

Lily looks at him for a moment. He watches her eyelashes and her big green eyes. “Of course I know, idiot.” He wants that, the fondness in her voice, always always always. “Now drink up.”

James drinks just as Sirius barges into the room, Remus and Peter behind him.

Through a fog, James hears Sirius say, “Evans, you used to be far more fun.”

“Sorry,” comes Lily’s unrepentant voice. “I might have wanted my husband back.”

“But now everyone will think I was lying about flashback James.”

James shakes at his head like he’s been swimming. “If everyone thinks you were lying, you deserve it, you whiny bastard. ‘Try this juice, Prongs, it looks funny.’ Merlin’s biggest arse boil. Tell the truth, Pads. Harry was really minding you all those times, right?”

“Course,” Sirius shrugs, and James can’t believe he thought for even a memory-deficient moment that Padfoot might have become old and responsible.


End file.
